DEPARTMENTAL SEMINAR (COMPUTER & COGNITIVE SCIENCES)
                           AUTUMN TERM 1999


TIME AND PLACE:    Thursdays 4pm (unless otherwise stated)
                   Lecture Room 7, School of Computer Science,
                   Aston Webb building, Block C

ORGANISER:         Marta Kwiatkowska
                   (M.Z.Kwiatkowska@cs.bham.ac.uk, ext 7264)
                   Sammie Snow
                   (S.Snow@cs.bham.ac.uk, ext 4774)


SPEAKERS and TITLES


-- Thu  7 Oct    Prof. Xin Yao
                 (School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham)
		 If the Mountain doesn't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go 
		 to the Mountain

-- Thu 14 Oct    ?Dr Riccardo Poli 
                 (School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham)

-- Thu 21 Oct    Bent Thomsen (ICL)
                 TBA

-- Thu 28 Oct    ?Richard Black (Computing Science Department, 
                 Glasgow University)

-- Thu  4 Nov    ?Prof. Simon Peyton Jones
                 (Microsoft Research, Cambridge)
		 
-- Thu 11 Nov    Dr Donald Peterson
                 (School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham)
		 Dialogical Processing, Mental Simulation and Autistic Bias

-- Thu 18 Nov    Dr Evaristus Mainsah
                 (Computer Aided Telephony Consultant, IBM UK Laboratories)
		 An introduction to computer telephony integration (CTI)

-- Thu 25 Nov    Prof. Alan Bundy 
                 (Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh)
		 A Critique of Proof Planning

-- Thu  2 Dec    Prof. Gordon Blair
                 (Computer Science, Lancaster University)
		 TBA

-- Thu  9 Dec    David Wakeling
                 (School of Engineering and Computer Science, 
                 University of Exeter)
                 Compiling Lazy Functional Languages for the 
                 Java Virtual Machine

-- Thu 16 Dec     

                 
ABSTRACTS

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-- Thu  7 Oct    Prof. Xin Yao
                 (School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham)
		 If the Mountain doesn't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go 
		 to the Mountain
		 
Finding the global optimum for a multimodal function is often very difficult,
especially when little prior knowledge is available. Evolutionary algorithms 
(EAs) have been used widely in optimising various multimodal functions with 
many local optima. Most of such work in EAs has concentrated on how to design 
better search operators (e.g., different kinds of crossover and mutation) for 
a difficult problem. While this approach has been successful in some cases, 
there are other ways to solve a difficult problem, i.e., we can approximate 
a difficult problem by a simpler one so that it is easier to solve. This talk
gives some examples on both approaches. First it shows how and why Cauchy 
mutations help improve EAs for many problems. Then it shows how to approximate
a complex problem by a simpler one and search it.
		 
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-- Thu 11 Nov    Dr Donald Peterson
                 (School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham)
		 Dialogical Processing, Mental Simulation and Autistic Bias

ABSTRACT: The talk will distinguish between 'monological' and 'dialogical'
processing in a frame-based cognitive system. The advantages of both
strategies will be discussed, together with the consequences of bias
towards one or the other. It will be proposed that the logic of autistic
cognition consists in a bias towards monological processing, and a link
will be drawn between the problem of dialogical processing in humans and
the problem of creating context-sensitivity in computer systems. A variety
of empirical work will be discussed.

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-- Thu  9 Dec    David Wakeling
                 (School of Engineering and Computer Science, 
                 University of Exeter)
                 
                 Compiling Lazy Functional Languages for the 
                 Java Virtual Machine

For some time now, we have been interested in the efficient
implementation of lazy functional languages on very small
computers, such as those found in consumer electronics
devices. So far, our implementations have assumed that
next-generation products will be controlled by
previous-generation RISC processors. But Sun's Java processors,
with their compact instruction encoding, are an attractive 
alternative. This talk considers whether these processors, 
which are designed to run only Java programs, could 
successfully run lazy functional programs instead.

.. 
Dr. David Wakeling, School of Engineering and Computer Science 
University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4PT. 
unofficial web page: http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~david

 
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